Can a "Trusted Retailer" badge scheme affect us in the SERPs?
-
Hi Guys,
In the last week our website saw a drop on some of our biggest and best converting keywords and we think it might be down to us rolling out a “Trusted Retailer” badge scheme.
We sell our products directly to consumers via our website, but we also sell our products to other online resellers. We think badges are a good to show the consumer that we trust a site.
On the 17th September we sent out badges to about 39 of our best retailers, two of whom have already put them on their sites.
Instead of sending them a flat jpeg, we sent them HTML files containing code that pulled in the image from our servers. We wanted to host the image to make sure that we always had some leverage. So if a company stopped selling our products, or the quality of their site went down, we could just remove the badge.
Whilst at it, we stuck a link in there pointing to an FAQ on our website all about trusted retailers and what people need to look out for. We chose the anchor text “(brand name) Trusted Retailer”, because that seemed to be the most relevant.
The code looks like this:
You might notice that there is a div just before the link. This is there to stop the user from clicking on the top 65% of the badge (because this contains the shop name and ID number), and we also used a negative text-indent to move the anchor text out of the way. But right underneath this is our Logo, so it’s almost a hidden link, but you can still click it.
So far the badge has been put in on two sites, one of which isn’t so great and maybe looks a tiny bit spammy. (They sell mostly through ebay as opposed to on their main site). Also, these sites seem to have put it on most of their pages!
So my questions are;
- Is this seen as black or grey hat?
- Is it the fact we put in anchor text with our brand?
- Or is it the fact the url is transparent in the coding?
- Or is it the fact the sites are using sitewide links?
- In any case would Google react so quickly as to penalise us in two days?
- If this is the issue, do you think there’s anything we can do to stop getting penalised? (Other than having to e-mail 39 retailers back and getting them to take the badges down).
Thoughts much appreciated – we do our SEO in-house and are still learning every day…
Thank you
James
-
Would putting nofollow and noindex on the FAQ itself make a difference? That should make it obvious to Google that we don't want any of the link juice.
I think that is a good idea. That should eliminate risk with google and ease concerns of affiliates who think like me.
-
In our case we don't usually stock the reseller, we rely on a number of wholesalers to distribute our products. This is why we need the leverage, because the normal methods aren't available to us.
I'm also not convinced by the assumption that we're really aiming to suck linkjuice and get clickthroughs. Firstly, we would have pointed it to a more important page, and secondly we would have pointed it to a page that converted into sales for us. And thirdly, if the reseller even suspected that we tried to that, they would stop selling our products. That's just not something we would risk doing. The combined sales of our resellers easily beats our own sales.
Despite that, if you think that our resellers are going lose ranking because they've put up sitewide links, then that's worrying and that's something we need to address.
Yes, in hindsight we probably should have made the link nofollow.
Would putting nofollow and noindex on the FAQ itself make a difference? That should make it obvious to Google that we don't want any of the link juice.
Thanks,
James -
Why do you think it's black-/grey-hat?
You decided that the badge needed a link. "Needing leverage" is BS. If you don't like the retailer don't restock him. The image would have been fine.
You decided that the link would be followed.... "Whilst at it, we stuck a link in there"... uh huh.
You are in competition against your retailers yet you want to suck their linkjuice and get clickthroughs to your website.
You still are not thinking of the possible rankings loss of your retailers if 39 of them toss up site-wide links to you.
-
Why do you think it's black-/grey-hat? I would not see the badge any different than the many affiliate-/referral programmes out there (or comparable to security-/trust-icons).
For me it would only be grey-hat if the intention was to improve page-rank or creating a large link-network. In Jame's case (the distributor) endorses resellers with their badge.
-
(Other than having to e-mail 39 retailers back and getting them to take the badges down)
This is what I would do.
I would not want to have site-wide links pointing to me from 39 reseller sites... and if one of my suppliers wants me to put up a sitewide badge on my site pointing back at him I will not do it.
Maybe some of your retailers think like me and if pressed to put up that badge they will find a different supplier.
Is this seen as black or grey hat?
To me, yes..
-
If you only rolled it out to two of your retailers, I wouldn't think this is the reason for it. There could be various reasons for the drop of keywords such as new competition on paid ads. I would look at a competitive analysis of those keywords first.
In my mind, displaying a badge is no different to any legitimate affiliate scheme. I would perhaps evaluate the reputation of the domains linking to you and would perhaps also check your own domains reputation (via Google Safe browsing / WOT / Siteadvisor etc).
I doubt that you would notice a drop so quickly (especially if it was sudden and not gradual). To me it looks like competitors targeting the same keywords (via content or paid search).
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Duplicate Content Product Descriptions - Technical List Supplier Gave Us
Hello, Our supplier gives us a small paragraph and a list of technical features for our product descriptions. My concern is duplicate content. Here's what my current plan is: 1. To write as much unique content (rewriting the paragraph and adding to it) as there is words in the technical description list. Half unique content half duplicate content. 2. To reword the technical descriptions (though this is not always possible) 3. To have a custom H1, Title tag and meta description My question is, is the list of technical specifications going to create a duplicate content issue, i.e. how much unique content has to be on the page for the list that is the same across the internet does not hurt us? Or do we need to rewrite every technical list? Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Help! Is this what is called "cloaking"?
Friend asked me to look at her website. Ran it through screaming frog and BAM, instead of 4 pages i was expecting it returned HUNDREDS. 99.9% of them are for cheap viagra and pharmaceuticals. I asked her if she was selling viagra, which is fine, I don't judge. But she swears she isn't. http://janeflahertyesq.com I ran it through google site:janeflahertyesq.com and sure enough, if you click on some of those, they take you to canadien pharmacys selling half priced blue pills. a) is this cloaking? if not, what is going on? b) more importantly, how do I we get rid of those hundreds of pages / de-indexed She's stumped and scared. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance and for the work you do.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | TeamPandoraBeauty0 -
My website is coming up under a proxy server "HideMyAss.com." How do I stop this from happening?
We've noticed that when we search our web copy in Google the first result is under a proxy server "HideMyAss.com," and our actual website is no where in sight. We've called Google and they really didn't have an answer for us (well the 2-3 people) we spoke with. Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AAC_Adam0 -
Link "Building" or "Earning" Which one are you doing? Both?
I'm curious to see how SEO's interpret this section of the Google Webmaster Guidelines on Link Schemes: The best way to get other sites to create high-quality, relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community. Creating good content pays off: Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and the more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it. (Source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en) I'm not asking what you "should" do, but rather what do YOU do... Do you interpret this as: Create awesome content and the links will come? Create Awesome Content and Outreach a bit? Perhaps you don't follow it all and concentrate on building links over content? What do you do and why? Discuss!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BrettDixon0 -
Why are "outdated" or "frowned upon" tactics still dominating?
Hey, my first post here. I recently picked up a new client in real estate for a highly competitive market. One trend I'm noticing with all the top sites they are doing old tactics such as:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Jay328
-Paid Directories
-Terrible/Spam Directories
-Overuse of exact text keywords for example: City name + real estate
-Blogroll/link exchange
-Tons of meta key words
-B.S. press releases blog commenting with kw as name Out of all the competition there is only one guy who is following the rules of today. One thing I'm noticing is that nobody is doing legit guest blogging, has great social presence, has awesome on page, etc. It's pretty frustrating as I'm trying to follow the rules and seeing these guys kill it by doing "bad seo". Anybody else find themselves in this situation? I know I'm probably beating a dead horse but I needed to vent about this 😉2 -
Main keyword decline in SERPs ranking :-(
Hi Moz, My very humble attempts at SEO has been doing very well for over a year with the keyword phrase 'vintage chanel bags'. Recently, about 3-4 months ago I noticed it dropped from rank 1 to rank 5. I've slowly but steadily been building up more social marketing interaction (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram mostly), brand awareness in company is increasing more searches for 'Vintage Heirloom', great in-links from reputable companies & bloggers. What I'm confused about is that one of our competitors Rewindvintage now appears as no.1 for this keyword but tracking with Moz every metric we outperform them on, namely domain authority & Page Authority. I have noticed they have 4 anchor text links (dubious quality wordpress comments), with the anchor term vintage chanel bags and we have none despite ranking no. 1 for so long?? I'm trying to use the Moz science here, just a bit confused. Any help, insights, similar experience would be much appreciated. I engage only in white hat and look for slow & honest SEO growth (as far as I'm aware ! ). Thanks for looking Kevin
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | well-its-1-louder0 -
Competitor using "unatural inbound links" not penalized??!
Since Google's latest updates, I think it would be safe to say that building links is harder. But i also read that Google applies their latest guidelines retro-actively. In other words, if you have built your ilnking profile on a lot of unnatural links, with spammy anchor text, you will get noticed and penalized. In the past, I used to use SEO friendly directories and "suggest URL's" to build back links, with keyword/phrase anchor text. But I thought that this technique was frowned upon by Google these days. So, what is safe to do? Why is Google not penalizing the competitor? And bottom line what is considered to be "unnatural link building" ?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | bjs20101 -
I need to find a website I can get guest blogs on for a removal website.
Hello everyone, I need to find a website I can guess blog posts on. Please can someone tell me where I need to look and how the process works: E.g Do i email the blogger saying I'll pay him? Also what categories would work well for removal website. www.van-plus.com to be precise. Thanks in advance!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | vanplus1